Support Coca-Cola Pakistan workers to resist escalating company attacks!

IUF members in Pakistan started to launch protest actions in March over a failure to reach an agreement on restructuring. In retaliation Coca-Cola's Turkish Bottler operating in Pakistan-Coca-Cola Içecek (CCI) escalated the attack on unions by terminating the union president, Brother Nasrullah, at Lahore. On March 28 management also increased harassment of union members by stopping them from attending Friday prayers.

A renowned union-busting lawyer Chaudhry Abdul Rub is under contract to Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCBPL) to deal with recent issues. This lawyer who was directly involved in union-busting at Coca-Cola Pakistan in 2000-2002 has filed petitions to challenge the legality of the unions at Islamabad and Peshawar. This is an aggressive attack to dismantle our members' rights to form and join trade unions.

CCBPL continued to impose unilateral restructuring and dismissed 15 permanent workers who are union officers and members who refused to sign the resignation letter and take the Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) payment. Their jobs were immediately outsourced rather than being genuinely redundant. CCBPL and CCI have aggressively pursued the mass redundancies by threatening those who refuse to resign and take VSS with termination.

Furthermore, women workers at the Lahore plant have been harassed on a daily basis by management and supervisors including being denied the right to go to the toilet. Rest and toilet break restrictions apply ONLY to women who are members of the union.

We urge affiliates organized in Coca-Cola to send a letter to Rengin Onay, Group Human Resources Director at CCI to call on the company that these urgent issues should be addressed immediately including a discussion with the unions and the IUF about the 15 unfairly dismissed workers and their reinstatement. You can use the template below or draft your own message. Please send the messages:

I am outraged to learn that Coca-Cola Içecek (CCI) imposes unilateral restructuring and terminated 15 union officers and members who refused to sign the resignation letter and take the Voluntary Separation Scheme payment at operations of Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCBPL).

It is deeply disturbing to learn that two weeks after CCI and CCBPL's Savvy & Successful event in Lahore to promote women's empowerment that women working in the company face systematic harassment and discrimination. This is clearly top-down driven and is a response to the ongoing dispute over unfair terminations.

This harassment and discrimination should stop immediately and CCI should guarantee that as a consequence of our raising this serious issue, our women union members will face no pressure, victimization or reprisals.

We call on the company to stop forced redundancies and harassment and victimization of union leaders and members and to address all urgent issues at CCBPL including entering into a discussion with unions and the IUF about the 15 unfairly dismissed workers and their reinstatement and withdrawal of show cause notices against 2 union members because of attending Friday prayers.